Have the kids ever been alright?

I need people older than millennials to weigh in today.

For the past few weeks I’ve had a student who seemed to be growing increasingly cold to me. At first it was just a lack of her usual warmth, replaced by more neutral vibes. But yesterday it became clearer than ever that she was actively ignoring me. I did one of those little teacher tricks where I ask her to run an errand for me (which kids tend to enjoy doing, to get a break from the classroom). This got her in the hallway where I could speak with her privately without making some kind of we-need-to-talk announcement in front of anyone else. I asked her if I had done anything to offend her. She said, “Yes, I don’t think you’ve been grading me fairly. So I decided to stop talking to you.”

After she ran the errand, we went back in the room and I showed her my grade book, explained why she had the grade she had, how I understood that it would be startling to see it lower than usual, but certain heavily-weighted assignments were missing and I fully expected it to be back to her usual A in no time, as soon as those assignments were finished. (Note: I don’t take off points for “late work.” Technically there’s no such thing as late work in my class because I accept all work until the end of the quarter.) I couldn’t tell if she had accepted my explanation, but my point is more about how she chose to handle the situation when she began to feel like she wasn’t being graded fairly, as she said. I’ve had this happen with kids every year. If they don’t like what I’m doing, they often have no interest in addressing it with me. They simply decide to start pretending that I don’t exist. They don’t respond when I call their name. They walk away when I walk up to them. If I try more than probably two times in one class period, they get up and leave the room without a word. In this case I was surprised she agreed to tell me what was on her mind, because typically these students keep ignoring me when I ask them what I’ve done that’s causing them to treat me this way. But I was surprised by her response from the beginning because she is not typically shy in expressing her thoughts.

What I’m wondering is, has every generation felt like the next one is really lacking in communication skills? I know we millennials have our quirks in communication. Like, don’t call us on the phone, ever. We will watch it ring out. If you must talk on the phone, you have to Facetime. I don’t know what to tell you about that. It just is what it is for us. But this group on the cusp of Gen Z and Gen Alpha? They have me worried sometimes. Am I just a curmudgeonly old thirty-something shaking my fist in the air while every generation has thought they were the last one to have any decent communication skills? Or is this group really struggling? I think there’s a lot of evidence for the latter. (See: all my writing about social media.) But I don’t want to assume they’re all that unique. They are still just kids after all, right?

Still, I had a student from the same class later on ask me with a tone a mix of curiousity and disappointment, “Ms. Conroy, why do I have a 58 in your class?” I again pulled up the gradebook and gave her an explanation. She said, “Oh, okay,” and went back to her work. So it’s not all of them, that’s for sure. But it’s enough that I’m thinking about it quite a lot.

I need to know what y’all think! Has every generation struggled to live up to the communication standards of the ones before?